Any breakdown cover with a new car?

WellKnownSid

daveyjp wrote: »

Mercedes give three years. Have it serviced at main dealers after the initial three years and the service includes a years cover.

30 years cover providing you have it serviced at a main dealer. Cover lasts up to the next service which may be two years away IIRC.

missile

fred246 wrote: »

Be very careful about 'roadside assistance'. When I started work I got a car loan for my first car. It included roadside assistance. Not the level of cover I normally had but I didn't think it was worth paying for another policy. I called them out on a rainy winter night to the services on the M6. He wouldn't even look at the car. Just quoted me hundreds to recover me. I decided to carry on driving and he made me sign a disclaimer and left. 'Roadside Assistance' is very basic cover. Make sure you know exactly what it means.

Why did you call(?) when you were able to "carry on driving"

Mercdriver

daveyjp wrote: »

Most do, you just need to check how long.

VW very generously give a year, yet Skoda and Audi, part of the same group will give you three.

Mercedes give three years. Have it serviced at main dealers after the initial three years and the service includes a years cover.

I locked my keys in the boot, and the Mercedes cover was prepared to courier my spare key to me same evening but wasn't able to find someone to do it, (it was after 6pm) so they sent a van in the next morning to plug the diagnostic machine to instruct the car to open the boot. I was away at a house my wife and I have in the Lake District. Luckily a spare key for the house is kept for us by a friend so I wasn't locked out of the house. You are allowed one of these incidents a year...It also includes 5 day courtesy car cover.

fred246

missile wrote: »

Why did you call(?) when you were able to "carry on driving"

I was driving along when I watched my temperature gauge go from normal to red instantaneously. I thought I had better do something. What's the point of gauges if you just ignore them? I parked over a puddle in the very wet car park. The breakdown man arrived. 'I can see the problem immediately, your radiator has gone, look at the water, you need recovering". "I have parked over a puddle", I replied. I started wittering about specific heat capacities and pondering an electrical fault. "You have a major electrical fault, you need recovering". He replied, "I will get you a price". I told him to get lost and drove home. It turned out to be a wire from the gauge had grounded on the bodywork. A piece of insulation tape sorted the problem. The roadside assistance man never even went near the car.

nidO

fred246 wrote: »

Be very careful about 'roadside assistance'. When I started work I got a car loan for my first car. It included roadside assistance. Not the level of cover I normally had but I didn't think it was worth paying for another policy. I called them out on a rainy winter night to the services on the M6. He wouldn't even look at the car. Just quoted me hundreds to recover me. I decided to carry on driving and he made me sign a disclaimer and left. 'Roadside Assistance' is very basic cover. Make sure you know exactly what it means.

On the flip side, we recently had very good service from the included assistance provided by Volvo with our new car, and their breakdown service.

I hit a fox on a dual carriageway a few weeks back, despite pulling over and finding no obvious sign of damage when I went to pull away again I got an "immediate engine service required" warning up.

At this point I called the assistance service and half expected to get a "recovery will be chargeable" reply given that I had hit a fox and therefore had an accident rather than a breakdown.

On the contrary, they had a recovery truck with me in half an hour which recovered the car back home (this was at about 11pm so no garages open to go straight to) then came back again the next morning to recover the car from my home to the dealer, at no cost.

My initial negative reaction was that because of the time of night their only option was to recover the car without even looking at it at the roadside (they don't have 24x7 engineer cover apparently) but it turned wouldn't have been able to sort me out at the roadside anyway, as among other things the fox wrecked the car's intercooler and radiator so both needed replacing.

bigjl

Jaguar and Land Rover have Jaguar and Land Rover Assist which is a dedicated team of mechanics with back up from certain RAC patrols.

You are also given a courtesy car which will either be a Jaguar or Land Rover product provided by Enterprise.